


Down the Slippery Slope

by misura



Category: Elenium/Tamuli Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Genre: Frenemies, M/M, Magic Made Them Do It, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 14:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16662343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "It really is your life's goal to frustrate me, isn't it?"





	Down the Slippery Slope

Sparhawk supposed he should be relieved that Martel's reflexes were as quick as he remembered them being. Any relief he felt was drowned out by his disappointment and chagrin though.

Seeing the same emotions reflected on Martel's face offered some small comfort.

"We really ought to stop meeting like this, brother." Martel's voice was wry.

Sparhawk shrugged, wondering how much of his face Martel was able to see in the shadowy interior of the tent. "You want to go back out there and fight your way through a horde of religious fanatics, be my guest."

"You and me together, side by side, might stand a more than solid chance."

"Until you decided the time had come to put a knife in my back, perhaps." Sparhawk snorted.

"You think so little of me?" Martel sounded genuinely hurt.

"It's less what I think and more what your actions these past years have demonstrated," Sparhawk said. "Anyway, I'd prefer to keep a low profile, and I don't have anywhere else I need to be in a hurry, so I'm fine waiting things out."

"Regardless of the company?" Martel smiled. "So what's to keep me from putting a knife in your back right here?"

"The fact that I'll be watching you?" Sparhawk suggested.

Martel sighed. For a brief moment, he looked weary - wearier even than last time Sparhawk had seen him. Clearly, the life of a renegade did not agree with him.

Sparhawk tried to feel smug at that, rather than a little sad. They had been friends, once. On a few occasions, he had felt there might be more than friendship between them, but Martel's breaking of the rules had put an end to all of that.

Now, they were enemies, plain and simple.

"So what are you doing here, anyway?" Martel asked.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Yes, but I asked first. The polite thing to do would be for you to answer my question before asking one of your own."

"Which you then wouldn't answer," Sparhawk said. "I think I'll pass."

Martel sighed again. "This isn't going to get any more comfortable if you insist on acting unfriendly. Like it or not, we're stuck here. You could at least make an effort to make the time pass more quickly by engaging in some light conversation."

"I'm fine with silence. I don't think we've got all that much to talk about, anyway."

"Perhaps not," Martel admitted. "Still, I often wondered what might have happened if you hadn't caught me that night, or if I'd managed to talk you out of betraying my little secret."

"Your 'little secret' could have cost you your soul," Sparhawk said. Even as the words left his mouth, he wondered if Martel was any better off now. "Not to mention your life, and a whole lot of other people's lives, if one of those creatures you'd summoned had gotten loose."

He had done the right thing, Sparhawk assured himself. What Martel had chosen to do after his banishment was not Sparhawk's responsibility.

"Which would be why I asked Sephrenia to teach me. As you may recall, she turned me down. What else was I to do, but seek lessons elsewhere?"

_Give up,_ Sparhawk wanted to say. It would be futile, though, a repeat of the argument he'd had with Martel a hundred times in his head, even if they'd only had it once in real life.

"You made your choice. Don't blame me for the consequences," he said.

"Oh, I'd never blame you for those," Martel said. "Is that what you thought? No, I only want to kill you for putting your duty before our friendship, and, I suppose, for being a bit of a nuisance. It's mostly personal, though. I hate you, and I want you dead, it's as simple as that."

"Trust me, the feeling's entirely mutual."

"Isn't it nice to be able to agree on something?" Martel smiled. The chanting outside had been steadily growing in volume, though not yet so loud to make conversation impossible. "And to think that once, we were as close as brothers."

"A tragedy," Sparhawk said, his tone as flat as he could make it.

Martel chuckled. "The funny thing is, I really did love you. If you'd asked me, instead of running straight to Vanion to turn me in, who knows? I might have given it all up. All my dreams, all my ambitions. For you."

The interior of the tent suddenly felt rather hot. "That's a lie."

"Not that it matters now, of course." Martel sounded distracted.

"I did ask you to stop. You wouldn't listen," Sparhawk said. Had it been anyone else, he might have gone to Vanion straightaway, but Martel had been a friend. Sparhawk had wanted to give him a chance to fix things by himself, to return to his senses.

"You did not _ask_ ," Martel snapped. "You ordered! You acted as if I had made a mistake, as if I had done something I ought to be ashamed of, when all I had done was to seek knowledge, to fully develop the powers that were rightfully mine."

Sparhawk's mouth felt dry. He'd have preferred to be fighting Martel with a sword in his hand - with one hand tied behind his back, if need be. It would have been better than this.

At least, it would have been easier. "What happened to us engaging in some light conversation?"

Martel made a frustrated gesture. "The ritual is nearing completion. It's messing with our minds, making us less rational, more prone to emotional outbursts."

"I don't feel anything," Sparhawk said.

Martel shot him a look. "You will. Why do you think I was so keen to get out of here? The last thing I need or want is a trip down memory lane, especially with you."

"Maybe my conscience is just clearer than yours. Maybe you have more regrets than I have."

"Regrets?" Martel laughed. "Sure. I have plenty of those, most of them to do with not having killed you when I had a chance. It would have made my life a lot easier."

"Well, you loved me. Love makes people do stupid things, or so I've heard," Sparhawk said.

Martel rolled his eyes. "Trying to develop a cruel streak? You should really leave that sort of thing to people who are actually good at it."

"Like you?"

"I do cruelty fairly well," Martel said. "You could say it comes with the job. Incidentally, the official goal of the ritual is to enhance fertility, so don't feel alarmed if you experience any strange urges."

"Such as?" Sparhawk mentally cursed his informant. Clearly, the man had held back a good deal of relevant information.

Martel smirked. "Haven't you ever wondered what it might be like to lie down with another man?"

"What does that have to do with fertility?" Sparhawk asked. "And not that it's any of your business, but yes, I have. Apart from the technical details, it wasn't noticeably different from lying down with a woman."

"I admit, I'm surprised. I don't suppose you would care to tell me who it was?" There was an emotion underlying the question Sparhawk couldn't quite name.

Still, the answer did not require much thought. "You suppose right."

"I'll have to find out the hard way, then," Martel said. "Ah well. It'll give me something to do."

Sparhawk decided that this conversation had taken a definite turn to the weird and, if he were honest with himself, the uncomfortable. Friends might talk of these kinds of things, and young men, but he and Martel were neither.

"Are you sure _you_ aren't experiencing any strange urges?"

Martel offered him a half-smile. "I'm not sure that I'd call them strange. Inconvenient, I might grant you, but then, this is you. Frustrating me seems to be your life's goal."

For one mad moment, Sparhawk was tempted to play along with Martel's game. It might not even be a game, if Martel was telling the truth about the ritual. Perhaps Sparhawk might convince him to turn back to the light, after all, to give up this quest for powers beyond those man was meant to have.

It would take much, to wipe the slate of all of Martel's sins clear, but with a bit of help, it might just be possible. Forgiveness was part of Sparhawk's faith, after all.

Martel blinked. "You know, you have the strangest expression on your face."

"There's a lot of people out there," Sparhawk said. "If we stick to talking, they're probably not going to notice we're here. Anything else, I'd rather not risk."

"If you were to look outside, you might find the risk somewhat negligible."

Sparhawk slowly moved towards the tent's exit. What little he glimpsed from what was going on was enough to send the blood rushing to his face.

"Still so innocent." Martel sounded amused and a bit wistful. "How do you manage that, Sparhawk?"

"I'm a stickler for the rules."

"That's not quite what I remember from our time as novices," Martel said.

"I guess we both changed, then."

"So now what?" Martel asked. "I've been honest with you. I may hate you and want you dead, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in finding out firsthand just how innocent you still are, or aren't. Call it professional curiosity. After all, one of these days, we're going to fight until one of us is dead. You never know what scrap of knowledge might come in handy."

"I think I'll call it you having been a lot more influenced by the ritual than you care to admit," Sparhawk said. He still had no idea why he himself felt nothing strange at all, apart from the heat. "Unlike you, I'm an honorable man. I have no intention of taking advantage of the situation."

"It really is your life's goal to frustrate me, isn't it?"

Sparhawk shrugged. He preferred to think it was simply a matter of Martel never being up to any good, and Sparhawk, as a Church Knight, being honor-bound to stop him.

Still, as Martel had said, things between them were also personal.

"If you were in my position, I wouldn't hesitate," Martel said. "Not for a moment. You see, I know you, Sparhawk. I know the way your mind works. I know that this would affect you. Perhaps not so much that you'd give up on wanting to kill me, but when the time came, you'd hesitate. You'd remember what it felt like, to have me inside you. To feel me under you. You'd wonder if maybe I couldn't be redeemed after all. And in that moment, I would kill you."

"Nice speech. I admit, telling someone you're going to kill them doesn't seem a very effective way to seduce them, but I'm sure that's just my innocence talking." Sparhawk was grateful he wasn't facing Martel right now.

"I'm simply demonstrating that my mind is still very much my own, and unaffected by anything else going on right now," Martel said. "Your assumption that I've been reduced to some state in which I cannot control myself is insulting, as well as false. If I wanted to, I could go out there and find physical satisfaction with anyone. As far gone as they are, I doubt it would register I'm not one of them."

"Right." Sparhawk tried to sound skeptical, though he admitted Martel might have a point. "But instead of just anyone, you want me, the guy you've been trying to kill for the past ten years or so."

"Pardon my crudeness, but since I can't kill you right now, I figure fucking you might be the next best thing."

"What makes you think I'd let you be on top?" Sparhawk parried. Part of him pointed out that this was not a conversational part he wanted to go down to, but another part of him was beginning to feel a certain interest. After all, if Martel truly wasn't affected by the ritual, that would mean there was nothing dishonorable about taking him up on his offer, was there?

Sparhawk frowned. Something about that logic felt just a little bit off, yet he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, exactly.

"I'm more experienced," Martel said.

"Really." Sparhawk grinned. "That almost sounds like a challenge."

Martel briefly closed his eyes. "You can be so very slow sometimes, Sparhawk. Almost oblivious. Yes, this is a challenge. Yes, one of us will walk out of this tent the winner, while the other will know he has been bested. Were there any other obvious truths you wanted to share?"

"If you're trying to play mind-games, it's not working."

Martel scoffed. "Just take off your clothes, will you? Those people out there aren't going to be distracted forever."


End file.
